Halloween’s final push is underway, and support case volume is already climbing ahead of the busier Q4 stretch.
Halloween: full intensity now
Sellers across costumes, decor, and party supplies report this is now the single busiest week of the category’s entire selling season, consistent with the compressed timeline we’ve discussed all along. If you’re in this category, the next few weeks are the payoff for whatever preparation happened in September.
Support wait times already lengthening
Following Friday’s mailbag piece on reaching support, several sellers this week confirmed response times are noticeably slower than a month ago, consistent with typical seasonal case volume increases. Worth planning around this rather than being caught off guard by it.
Deadline discipline paying off, per seller reports
A few sellers specifically mentioned turning down last-minute custom Halloween requests they weren’t confident they could fulfill in time, and reported feeling good about that decision in hindsight, a nice real-world confirmation of Wednesday’s piece on protecting quality under a hard deadline.
A quieter tariff note
Sourcing cost conversation has settled into steady background concern rather than an actively escalating story, consistent with what we noted at the end of September. Sellers seem to have largely adjusted pricing and sourcing decisions and are now operating within the new normal rather than reacting to ongoing change.
What we’re watching
Halloween’s final week, and the earliest signs of the broader holiday gift-shopping season beginning to overlap with it.
Back next Sunday.
